Sunset on Thanksgiving

Dear old and new friends,

Once upon a time Thanksgiving was to celebrate the end of a good harvest and that barns and fruit cellars were full, insuring there would be enough to eat through the coming winter. Today’s Thanksgiving signals not the end but the beginning of the harvest season for merchants whose customers will spend roughly 70% of the American gross domestic product on Christmas gifts. These gift sales are critical since they determine merchants’ annual profit and that of our national economy. The nation’s treasury and merchants pray that, in spite of terrorist threat, the old adage “Shoppers keep shopping” will be true this year.

Yet we and our children already have all if not more than we need; so why buy more? And why does the celebration of Christmas or Hanukkah require giving gifts of things we don’t really need? Wait…did you hear it? That tiny voice saying, “Now Hays, don’t turn into a Scrooge and ruin our coming merry holidays.” I won’t! Yet I wish to help us explore why we do what we do and to offer some other options. We give gifts now because the ancient Romans found the winter weeks to be dark and dreary, so they celebrated Saturnalia on December 17th in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. During December’s cold, long and dark nights, this feast lifted their spirits by drinking and partying to excess. The Romans also exchanged token gifts and candles, and gifts of fruit and nuts.

The coming of Christianity didn’t convert the climate of dark cold weather, but in the 4th century Christians converted the sinful pagan feast of Saturnalia into the light festival of the birth of Jesus, and kept the old Roman custom of giving gifts. Giving gifts at Christmas time then is a beautiful nearly four thousand year and older tradition well worth keeping. Also, our spirits are lifted with a lights festival in winter’s darkness by illuminating our town and houses with endless strings of festive-colored lights. I have a friend who puts up “inside” his home strings of countless colored Christmas lights. He turns off all other lights and loves to sit meditatively in their glittering grandeur as if at the center of a galaxy. Now there’s a wonderful tradition; turn off the other lights in your home and spend quality time lost in childlike wonder in the magical presence of your lighted Christmas tree.

For a spouse or family member, instead going to a store for a gift, go around your home and find an old souvenir from some memorable vacation with them. Wrap it in Christmas paper and put it under the tree, and when the person opens it reminisce with them about the good times of that trip. Or recycle a cherished gift by symbolically wrapping it in holiday paper and giving it back (temporally) to the person(s) who had thoughtfully given it to you, telling them how all these years it has been such a keepsake. God help the merchants this year to survive, and even make a profit…but let us not add to the glut of our too-much-of-everything consumerism.

Finally, while shopping is like a sedative and consumerism the opiate of the masses, we often buy gifts we can’t afford for people who have too much already. It is estimated that one-third of our holiday buying still remains unpaid for two months after Christmas! We also buy stuff people don’t need or even like, as it is estimated 18% of holiday presents (worth a staggering $12 billion) are never worn or used.

John D. Rockefeller, Sr., the multimillionaire (in today’s dollars a multi-billionaire), learned he was to be gifted in the early 1900’s by his children with an electric car to enable him to easily ride around his vast estate. His response? “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather have money."

A Trinity of Holidays

Dear old and new friends, It’s Thanksgiving, and merchants in a hurry for the beginning of the lucrative holiday season are flooding television and newspapers with advertisements for Christmas gifts. This holiday impatience is contagious. Countless are infected and can’t wait for the Thanksgiving dinner to end so to race off to join crowds of shoppers in city streets and businesses already decked out for Christmastide, while everywhere one hears the music of ancient carols. These all conspire to make it difficult to realize we’re celebrating Thanksgiving.

Paradoxically, I propose adding yet another holiday to Thanksgiving—Valentine’s Day! By blending Thanksgiving’s turkeys with snowy Christmas trees and toy-making elves along with giant red hearts, pink cupids and bouquets of red roses of the Feast of Lovers we can add to our gratitude. That’s ridiculous, you say…it will only distract people! Really? More than competitive TV football games or hectic Christmas shopping now divert us from visiting and enjoying our family on this ancient feast of autumn gratitude?

We Americans already easily forget we are so gifted; don’t let a premature Christmas eclipse or thrilling football games sidetrack us from being truly thankful! Be aware of that Grand Canyon of disparity in wealth between us and the impoverished, unemployed and homeless, and our need to alleviate their suffering by giving thanks in tangible acts.

To the many dishes on Thanksgiving tables that are from treasured old recipes I add: Recipe forA Holy Feast of Giving Thanks1.) Begin by recalling the Haystack reflection of two weeks ago about the African American Father Divine and his conception of tangibilitating…giving in concrete, tangible ways. 2.) Write a short list of those things for which you are most grateful. Keep it short so you are able to express your gratitude not simply in words but in tangible ways.

Remember, we've added Valentine’s Day to our Thanksgiving. Love is divine; a gift you can’t buy, trade, barter for or win. Love is a free gift that is ever-evolving.

3.) Now return to your gratitude list. At the top might be those who taught you how to love by their loving of you—your parents. Next, teachers and mentors whose love helped shape you. Now place with them the person who presently loves you most, and whom is your greatest love. Then on Thanksgiving express your appreciation and gratitude for her or him in a tangible way by giving them a lover’s gift of affectionate gratefulness. It can be simple or elegant. Regardless, it will be a treasure because it is filled with love.

A Mystical Mini Prayer

Most prayers are too long, heavily loaded with words. So simply pray, “Thank you.” Say it to your hungry appetite just before eating. Say it to a glass of fresh water you’re about to drink. Say it to your body after a good bowel movement. Say it to your armchair when sinking into her supple embrace. Say it to the sun for a splendorous bright day. Say it to the hot water of your shower or tub. Say it to the coffee in your cup for its invigorating zest. Say it to whatever you’ve lost upon finding it. Say it as a toast when raising a glass to a dear friend. Say it in restaurants or stores to the stranger who serves you. Say it to those you love and those you find difficult to love. And yes, say it even to pain and to suffering you might not understand. But of this mini prayer—beware! Usually, it’s so thoughtlessly robotic. So before you say/pray it, go to the filling station and fill up its two holy words to overflowing with sincere love and gratefulness. Saints are made by praying it night and day. Treasure this pint-size prayer mystically hiding this awesome truth: “Everything in life, absolutely everything, is gift, gift, gift!” Thursday is Thanksgiving, as every day should be. To all friends who visit the Haystack, “Thank you!”

Thanksvision

Thursday is Thanksgiving, but the window for gratitude is short-lived since the Christmas gift-buying season begins the same day. Eager to cash in on holiday specials, we are focused on what we are going to get rather than on being thankful for what we have. Don’t let trivia activities prevent you from engaging fully in this annual Fiesta of Giving Thanks. A practical suggestion for a good Thanksgiving is to make a list or a litany of the gifts that enrich your life. These are difficult and thankless times for the millions without jobs, on food stamps and struggling to just make ends meet. Even those among us who are in better financial condition often find little in life for which to be grateful. If your gratitude list is short, consider adding the gifts of family and friends. Next add to it your servants—and don’t object by saying only the very rich can afford servants. The average American home has a score of servants who work to make life more comfortable and to do the unpleasant tasks: a stove for cooking, a refrigerator, washing machine, toaster, radio, television, telephone…and don’t forget the simple doorbell. Consider thanking these docile servants who serve you day and night, usually without a single word of gratitude. I have left to the last the most important reason for gratitude—the invisible gifts. Yet to be really thankful for these requires a special vision. Eyesight naturally diminishes as we age, so it is paradoxical that older people are the experts of this needed, exceptional vision. The eyes of the youthful are attracted to externals like physical beauty and consumer possessions, and so when seeing an elderly couple enjoying themselves are bewildered about what they can find attractive in one another. One of my favorite authors, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, said “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.” Heart-seeing is a skill of the elderly who find great attractiveness in indispensable fidelity that’s invisible to the eye. They are also fabulously wealthy because of loving companionships that are impossible to purchase at any price and by the invisible wealth of many memories shared. This Thanksgiving, get drunk on 100 Proof Gratitude for your many essential gifts that can be seen only by your heart.